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Bluesky’s burgeoning sports community got a major boost in recent days with both MLB and the NBA setting up official league accounts on the social media site.
The league’s decisions likely clear the way for their franchises to follow in setting up team accounts as well. As of Tuesday evening, neither MLB nor the NBA had yet posted on their respective Bluesky accounts.
It’s one of the first signs that Bluesky could emerge as a true alternative to X/Twitter in the sports social media world. The site, which functions primarily off short text-based posts similar to how X/Twitter has long operated, exploded in popularity over the past year amid backlash to X owner Elon Musk’s influence over the site.
Musk became a strong supporter of President Donald Trump amid Trump’s successful bid to return to the White House and is playing a significant outside role in Trump’s current administration.
Bluesky, initially founded as a research initiative within Twitter before being spun out as its own company by Twitter cofounder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey, has been praised by some as a return to how Twitter functioned before Musk bought it in 2022. Dorsey had left Bluesky’s board of directors by May 2024, six months before a surge in signups to Bluesky following the 2024 election.
Sports teams and fans were largely exempt from the exodus to Bluesky at first. FOS reported at the time that Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino had remained engaged with the NFL, NBA, and other U.S. pro sports leagues about how to maximize their presence on the platform. X also has a formal partnership with the NFL that includes an “NFL Portal” on the platform featuring standings, stats, and a specific NFL-focused feed of X posts.
So: with the NBA and MLB aboard, is the NFL next? It’s now the last major holdout to Bluesky of the biggest three U.S. pro men’s leagues. (The NHL does not appear to have a league account on Bluesky yet, but several of its teams are on the platform.)
The NFL’s resistance to the platform so far is the subject of a lawsuit filed by two fans last week, claiming that the NFL’s lack of Bluesky presence violates antitrust laws. That comes after the vice president of content at New England Patriots umbrella company Kraft Sports & Entertainment, Fred Kirsch, said in January the team is “not allowed” to have a Bluesky account due to NFL restrictions.
If you’re waiting to follow the NFL on Bluesky, your wait will continue for a while longer. The NFL only creates official accounts on platforms where it has a business partnership (Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram; X; and TikTok, for example). And while the NFL declined to comment for this story, a source close to the league says Bluesky doesn’t have enough scale yet.
